How to be a Father
by Miss Katrina Malfoy
Summary: Set after the buu saga but before the official final episode of DBZ. Vegeta has had a miserable life, and things are finally looking better, and he has one person to thank for that, his mate. But finding out she's keeping secrets from him threatens it al


How to be a father

( originally intended for Submission to the Saijin Princess Challenge created by The Crystal Rose…but I sort of changed my mind, decided to make this a regular fanfic lol. My first attempt at DBZ so let me know if I get something wrong, I will fix it)

The woman had been acting oddly for the past several weeks. She'd been snapping at him more often than usual and using the strangest phrases. She'd randomly cry or call him a pointy haired idiot, sometimes in the same sentence. Once or twice he'd actually been pushed past the point of endurance by the ridiculousness of it all and had, on occasion, considered actually killing her. True, he'd often spoken like that with his original arrival on this dust heap of a planet but he'd never intended acting on it, and before long the woman realized the constant threats were entirely impotent. But when his mate, the woman he truly though he'd given up the universe for, was treating him a bit like a dung beetle he reasoned that there was something seriously wrong. And it pissed him off.

He'd taken off for a few days last week, simply on the provocation of avoiding murdering her. But, if he was honest with himself, it was more about trying to figure out what was going on in his own mind. He'd watched his rival leave for good, saw a 12 year old boy defeat the monster that tossed him around like a rag doll and was currently learning how to be a father to the heir to his lost people.

Trunks truly was such a ridiculous name for the new prince of the mighty saiyan race. Of course, the woman hadn't asked his opinion. He hadn't known about Trunks really, she hadn't told him before he left to train in space and she hadn't contacted him at all while he was gone.

That particular aspect still didn't sit right with him. He never asked her why, even now all these years later, he'd never asked her. He couldn't say he really wanted to hear the answer. Several possibilities had occurred to him, none of which he found particularly positive. The best answer he'd come up with is that she hadn't wanted to interrupt his training, believing it to be the best shot she had of surviving the androids. This solution, though, was mostly to fuel his ego.

A far less pleasant answer had also occurred to him. That she wasn't sure he was coming back at all and therefore it would have just made everything more complicated. Sure he'd left in a hurry, but it really couldn't have been helped. He knew he'd hit his plateau and his frustration and stubborn pride to prove himself had forced him to make the journey. He knew that if he was to survive this fight it would take more than he had, and more than a year of training in the gravity capsule hadn't done what he needed it to. He was out of options. And he was running out of time.

Considering the last few years had created a solution in his mind that he hadn't thought of at the time, that the reason she hadn't told him is because she hadn't wanted him to know. That maybe she thought it wouldn't matter to him, or, what's worse, that he would've been so disgusted by the mere idea that he would've gone through with any of the millions of threats of violence she had been subject to since his arrival. The truth of that statement was simply that he didn't know that he wouldn't have killed her. Retrospectively he didn't want to image it, just as he didn't want to fantasize about it now, but he'd seen so much death at his own hands, and despite her assertions that he wasn't "that man" anymore, he wasn't convinced.

He'd actually reaped his reward for that life already, he was LITERALLY living another life now, but the memories don't fade. And when he was dead, in that point where he'd said goodbye to everything he'd always thought he'd never have. That moment, he was reminded that he had been a killer, since he was a small child. He was a killer…in spite of all the supposed good he'd tried to do, he would always be a killer.

Arriving back after all in space at that moment in time to discover he had a son was shock enough. Not only that but it changed everything. It wasn't something he had ever expected, since the death of his home world he had assumed he would always be alone. Even after meeting Gohan and acquiring a begrudging respect for the kid, it was out of the realm of possibility that he would ever be a father. The fact that his own father had been a tyrant who had sold his son to a monster wasn't lost on him. It was a huge moment of panic. He had an heir, a son, he was, in one instant, a father. The fact that said son had purple hair nearly sent him into fits. There had never been such a thing as a purple haired saiyan before and it almost seemed like some sort of cosmic joke that his son would be the one to break the mould.

Finding that his son lacked a tail was something he wasn't prepared to accept. He saw the neat little surgical precision with which it was apparently removed. But the lack of tail still galled him. He couldn't believe that something so precious had been removed from his son without his permission. Sure perhaps the woman hadn't know its importance but it still seemed like a personal attack on the proud history of his people. He'd ranted at her for hours…days it seemed like...about simply her galling lack of forethought.

And when he'd said his piece he noticed that she was completely calm…just looking at him. He'd never seen her look at him like that. It was just that one look that calmed him too. She'd smiled at him, and he forgot quickly that he was ever really that angry. It seemed so silly now, nearly 12 years after that evening that he still remembered that smile. There hadn't been a need for any other words.

He recalled they sat out under the star filled sky and gazed at the full moon. Even in this huge crowded city that he'd come to call home, there were still those moments where he could imagine that they were the only people on the planet. She'd turned to him, nestled close, and whispered softly "This is why I did it, I wanted my son, our son, to be able to do this someday. Sit beneath the stars on a full moon night." He knew she wasn't completely honest with him. He knew it was because she was afraid of the giant ape and that fear had lead her to surgically remove the tail (as she'd learned when Goku was a kid...cutting it off wasn't enough when they were little because it could regenerate, she had to find a more permanent solution) But for that moment he could believe her. They'd slept outside that night. She knew he needed that. After all that time in the ship, it had to be wonderful to just breathe the night air and not feel confined. She understood things like that, she always had. And that night was a memory he'd never mentioned to anyone, something special he kept to himself.

Of course, life with Bulma and Trunks wasn't always sunshine and daisies. Simply put, he didn't know how to live with other people, and Trunks was 3 years old before he'd even considered marrying Bulma., after all, they had customs on his planet and he remembered them. Vaguely anyway. It was just that he felt inadequate to the task. He wasn't really comfortable with the concept of meaning that much to anyone. But his son had asked him, at 3 mind you, what a bastard was…he'd heard it at nursery school, and, always being rather advanced for his age, was surprised he'd never learned that particular term. Bulma had to work really hard on calming Vegeta down...as he was, at that instant, set on blowing up the whole establishment. That was a concept they had in the royal courts and it wasn't something to be taken lightly. It meant that Bulma was little more than a common whore and he wouldn't ever allow anyone to disgrace those he'd chosen in such a manor. She'd explained how it worked on Earth to him but it hadn't calmed his anger. When he described the Saiyan life mate ceremonies she'd told him about weddings. The eventual ceremony was more like the later but he was surprised at how much trouble she'd gone to replicating as much as she could from what he'd told her.

He rarely wanted to do things with his family. He often got into arguments with Bulma about it. Often she would get exasperated and leave without him. Then there was the fact that he trained all the time. Pretty much all day everyday. It didn't exactly leave much room for familial bonding. He only saw his son if he chose to take him into the training room or at meals. Occasionally, when Trunks was really young, he'd go with him over to Mount Pao to spend time with Kakarott's brat.

Somewhere along the line though, Trunks appeared to have developed a haughty disposition. He was a sweet enough kid for a saiyan but also arrogant, boastful, pushy and just about the most spoiled child there ever was. Vegeta considered it proof that he was never meant to be a father.

He loved his family, but he always had this nagging self doubt that he wasn't allowed to have a family. Something about being both a murderer and victim, something about that told him it was too dangerous to have a family, that they would end up like his father, like his entire race, obliterated. It was only in that time since Kakarott decided to be a good father for once and stick around that Vegeta was able to actually have someone to measure his own parenting against. He'd never admit it but he was almost jealous of how effortless it seemed to the younger saiyan. The mere fact that he'd been gone for 7 years didn't seem to matter so much. The family slid back into their normal routine quickly, he envied that.

It had taken Vegeta the better part of two years to repair the relationship between him and his family. They still loved him but they seemed to be walking on eggshells. Bulma in particular was almost afraid to fight with him like they used to, as if it had been something disagreeable she said that caused him to choose power over his friends. And as for Trunks…the boy hadn't slept much after the boo incident. True, it had quelled his horrible attitude but he had nightmares where he was hearing his father was dead all over again and he couldn't face it. Some nights he'd sleep in the hall by his parents' door just because it made it easier to sense that his dad was still in there.

They had eventually settled on some semblance of normalcy. But this was fragile and Vegeta found himself wondering how long it would be before they realized he really was the monster he became at the world martial arts tournament, that it was the family man who was the mask. So in the past month or so, with Bulma snapping at him and trunks for every little thing, blaming him for everything from not being able to stop eating at meals or her jeans not fitting (he pointed out once that the two things were related and ended up spending the night in the gravity chamber).

He almost laughed at how, a year ago, he'd have given anything for her not to be afraid to yell at him. Now it seemed like it was all she ever did. Most of what she complained about he couldn't possibly see how he was responsible for…another thing which apparently annoyed her. He'd come inside in the evening for dinner and she'd get disgusted and leave the room. Some mornings the smell of cooked meat made her sick and she'd run out of the kitchen as if her feet would catch fire if she didn't move fast enough.

The worst part about this whole mess is she wouldn't tell him what was wrong. He'd tried asking, yelling, demanding, everything he could think of, even trying to use his son to ask. He'd sent trunks in, and she'd told him "tell your father I'm not talking to him, and that it's really despicable to use our son to manipulate me." Trunks wasn't particularly excited about delivering that particular bit of information to his famously volatile father. But what it proved to Vegeta was that she was deliberately hiding something from him…a concept he found really unsettling.

The fact that she was irrational occurred to him, but some secret part of him was worried. Worried he was loosing her somehow. Even at their most irate, confrontational, brutal disagreements over the years, he'd never doubted that they'd be alright. This time he wasn't so sure. Even being afraid like this made him feel worse. He was a Prince…true fear was beneath him. Wasn't it? And if it were true, then what? If he messed up this time, would he be given another chance? And did he deserve it?


End file.
